Hi everybody. Thank you for all the info and inspiration! I’ve been reading OG for a while, and decided to make an account and document my grow.
Background and motivation
I was a pothead in my 20s. I smoked as much as I could get away with, first to try it out, then to escape something (didn’t quite figure out what, so far), then just because I was used to and addicted to it. It swallowed all of my non-work time and I eventually realized that it kept me from being all that I could be.
I stopped altogether around the time I turned 30. I’d try a joint on rare occasions, only to immediately want more and remember why I stopped. I don’t want to be high all the time again.
After a couple more years, I had the opportunity to try CBD strains (flowers and oil). The regular stuff worked as expected (somehow relaxing, etc), but what I found most intriguing were the “high THC” (up to 1%) CBD strains. There was that ever so mild hint of what I remembered: pleasant head state, slightly different perception, daydreaming, and so on. Most importantly, I didn’t feel like having more right away.
I’m about to turn 40 now. I have young children I need and want to be present for, and a life full of passions and hobbies. I don’t want to go back to being a pothead, but I’d love to enjoy some altered states in moderation.
I can’t get any CBD (let alone high THC CBD strains) where I live now. It’s time to grow my own.
Basic decisions
- Strains: Purplematic CBD auto (very low THC) and Stress Killer CBD auto (1:1 CBD:THC), both from RQS
- Location: non-legal jurisdiction, children, neighbors – it has to be indoors
- Medium: soil
- Method: organic, letting mother nature do its thing as much as possible. I’d call it living soil, although the term seems to have taken a strange meaning around here
Build: environment
I’m using a small (0.3 square meters footprint, just under 2m total height) metal closet located in a climate controlled room. I painted the interior with flat white low VOC paint:
Inside there’s a S&P TD250/100 two speed duct fan and PrimaKlima carbon filter mounted as high as possible. The extra hole is from getting the first measurement wrong. Intake is through another 100mm hole on the same side at the bottom, under the raised base level.
The light is a “Figolite grow” (QB clone from Aliexpress) 120W panel with LM301H leds (3500k), 660nm and toggleable 730nm IR / 395nm UV.
I sewed the pot (thank you @ReikoX for the inspiration) from landscaping fabric to match the footprint. It has a hacked-up rectangular plastic tray underneath to prevent any runoff from damaging the closet or the floor. It’s held in place with two wooden frames ziptied to the closet structure.
Control system
There’s a Rasberry Pi 4 driving an 8 channel relay board to control the light and fan. The high voltage parts are enclosed in a junction box.
The RPi and junction box are velcroed to the wall and also supported by a piece of wood ziptied to the closet.
Sensors:
- 1x Xiaomi MiFlora soil temp/humidity/conductivity/light
- 2x (one at the top and one outside, in front of the intake hole) RuuviTag temp/humidity
- MLX90640 thermal camera (mounting not yet done) for leaf temperature
- RPi HQ camera (mounting/focusing not yet done) for time lapse
For software, I had started to build something with Node Red, InfluxDB and Grafana. A few days in I had the basics working but discovered Mycodo, which already had everything else I wanted to build and much more. I use Mycodo now.
Build: soil
The pot has roughly 80L of substrate, with an empty clearance at the top to allow for future amendments. At the bottom there’s a ~2cm layer of expanded clay to help drainage from the rest of the soil.
The rest is filled with a mixture of:
- 4 parts organic compost
- 4 parts peat
- 3 parts perlite
- 1 part vermiculite
- 10kg of organic substrate from a local park
To inoculate the soil:
- The first watering had some Easy Roots Mycorhiza and Rhizobacter dissolved in. I’m no longer convinced that you can pick specific spores/“bennies” but I already had these and figured it can’t hurt.
- The second watering had 10% JMS aka JADAM microbial solution, made with boilet potato, sea water, and leaf mold soil from a nearby forest. I plan to keep adding this every now and then.
Plants
All planted directly into the soil on February 13th.
The stars of the show:
Companion plants: everything from RQS’s “Royal Guardians Bio Pack”. These are probably intended for outdoor planting and are complete overkill/overly tight for this pot size. I plan to ruthlessly trim and use them as top dressing. Hopefully there’ll be some pest deterrent benefits as well. I specifically planted:
- Alfalfa (in 2 separate corners of the pot)
- White clover (in 2 separate corners)
- Cerastium
- Marigold
- Chervil
- Peppermint
- Chamomile
- Yarrow
- Sweet basil
, I see you’re not a fan of the KISS method 
, RQS is always a good choice, willing to see them grow … 
